Reviews

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“In Full Moon at Noontide Ann Putnam offers us the gift of a loving book. . .at full catastrophe. . . . . But it is more a story than a memoir, more a ‘casting of raw, bitter facts into arcs of light.’ It is a poem that reveals the shimmering thin place between the ‘normal’ world to which we’re accustomed and the world to which we will journey.”

—Dr. David Hilfiker, author, physician and founder of Joseph’s House in Washington D. C.

“From the beginning Full Moon at Noontide seduced me. Then it sliced me open, slapped me in the face, made me cry and enlarged by spirit . . .. [I]t is the profound love for her family that animates all the craft and wins our hearts. We stay with the story because it so beautifully written, because it is ultimately our story as well, and because Putnam shows us that love—not death—can have the last word.”

—Dr. Thomas Cole, author, and director the McGovern Center for Health, Humanities, and the Human Spirit at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School

“Old age, death, and impermanence—it seems at first glance impossible to make a reader see these timeless and universal experiences with fresh eyes, but Ann Putnam’s luminous prose achieves that miracle and more, transforming pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.”

—Charles Johnson, winner of the National Book Award for Middle Passage

“Full Moon at Noontide carries its share of regret and second-guessing. But Putnam’s thrice-repeated journey as primary caregiver to her beloved elders provides elemental lessons. Her tender, beautifully-written observation of old age, infirmity and death — of “loss upon loss” — is not nearly as frightening as you might think. It is a wise and loving affirmation of life lived to the very end.”

“Putnam deftly captures the decline-by-degrees that will be familiar to anyone who has helped parents in their later years. There are the myriad wrenching choices involved in downsizing, and the transition of decision-making from parent to grown child. There’s the shifting kaleidoscope of medical personnel who figure so prominently in the lives of beloved ones, and who just as suddenly are replaced by other problems, other specialists. There are the bewildering and maddening regulations that dictate sudden and seemingly arbitrary moves to other facilities, other levels of care. But as inevitable as this narrative is, and as filled with loss, it is not a depressing story. Humor has its moments. Routine has its comforts. And a core sense of dignity and love pervades this universal tale.”
—Barbara Lloyd McMichael, The Tacoma News Tribune (read the entire review here)

“Putnam writes with sensitivity about losing a loved one, an experience that is both personal and common to us all.”
—Katie Schneider, The Oregonian (read the entire review here)

“Unflinching in its look at the truths we may prefer to ignore – the passing of time, the breakdown of the body, the complicated give and take between parent and child, the fact that we are all on the inexorable march toward the end – this is a hard book because Ann Putnam has the courage to tell us the truth about aging and dying. But it’s a gorgeous book, too, one born from the endurance of the human spirit and the capacity to love.”
—Lee Martin, author of River of Heaven

“Anyone can suffer; only an artist can turn suffering into something beautiful and universal. If there’s a survivor’s guide to easing the transitions necessary with aging parents, this is it.” —Ladette Randolph, editor of Ploughshares

“This memoir is heart-rending and heart-warming, as Ann Putnam describes the deaths of her beloved father and his identical twin, her much-loved uncle. Putnam translates these losses into an inspiring and poignant family story that is also the tale of every family facing the inevitable.”
—Nina Baym, editor of The Norton Anthology of American Literature

“Ann Putnam’s story should be helpful to many people trying to care for elderly, ill loved ones. This is not a how-to handbook, but rather a model of making meaning, a narrative of love – of piecing together scraps of lives, artifacts, photographs, memories, letters.”
—Carol Donley, co-editor of Doctors and Their Stories

“With the caring attention of a novelist, Ann Putnam has given us a story of love and loss and survival that moves and instructs. This is a work of love and devotion, a gift.”
—Annick Smith, author of In This We Are Native and co-producer of the film A River Runs Through It

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Reader Voices

“Old age, death, and impermanence—it seems at first glance impossible to make a reader see these timeless and universal experiences with fresh eyes, but Ann Putnam’s luminous prose achieves that miracle and more, transforming pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.”

—Charles Johnson, winner of the National Book Award for Middle Passage

“Anyone can suffer; only an artist can turn suffering into something beautiful and universal. If there’s a survivor’s guide to easing the transitions necessary with aging parents, this is it.”

—Ladette Randolph, editor of Ploughshares

“This memoir is heart-rending and heart-warming, as Ann Putnam describes the deaths of her beloved father and his identical twin, her much-loved uncle. Putnam translates these losses into an inspiring and poignant family story that is also the tale of every family facing the inevitable.”